Immoral Programming: What can be done if malicious actors use language AI to launch ‘deepfake science attacks’?

The problem-solving and imitation capabilities of AI are increasing. In parallel, research addressing ethical AI design has gained momentum internationally. However, from a cybersecurity-oriented perspective in AI safety, it is vital to also analyse and counteract the risks posed by intentional malice. Malicious actors could for instance exploit the attack surface of already deployed AI, poison AI training data, sabotage AI systems at the pre-deployment stage or deliberately design hazardous AI. At a time when topics such as fake news, disinformation, deepfakes and, recently, fake science are affecting online debates in the population at large but also specifically in scientific circles, we thematise the following elephant in the room now and not in hindsight: what can be done if malicious actors use AI for not yet prevalent but technically feasible ‘deepfake science attacks’, i.e. on (applied) science itself? Deepfakes are not restricted to audio and visual phenomena, and deepfake text whose impact could be potentiated with regard to speed, scope, and scale may represent an underestimated avenue for malicious actors. Not only has the imitation capacity of AI improved dramatically, e.g. with the advent of advanced language AI such as GPT-3 (Brown et al., 2020), but generally, present-day AI can already be abused for goals such as (cyber)crime (Kaloudi and Li, 2020) and information warfare (Hartmann and Giles, 2020). Deepfake science attacks on (applied) science and engineering – which belong to the class of what we technically denote as scientific and empirical adversarial (SEA) AI attacks (Aliman and Kester, 2021) – could be instrumental in achieving such aims due to socio-psycho-technological intricacies against which science might not be immune. But if not immunity, could one achieve resilience? This chapter familiarises the reader with a complementary solution to this complex issue: a generic ‘cyborgnetic’ defence (GCD) against SEA AI attacks. As briefly introduced in Chapter 4, the term cyborgnet (which is much more general than and not to be confused with the term ‘cyborg’) stands for a generic, substrate-independent and hybrid functional unit which is instantiated e.g. in couplings of present-day AIs and humans. Amongst many others, GCD uses epistemology, cybersecurity, cybernetics, and creativity research to tailor 10 generic strategies to the concrete exemplary use case of a large language model such as GPT-3. GCD can act as a cognitively diverse transdisciplinary scaffold to defend against SEA AI attacks – albeit with specific caveats

Moral Programming: Crafting a flexible heuristic moral meta-model for meaningful AI control in pluralistic societies

Artificial Intelligence (AI) permeates more and more application domains. Its progress regarding scale, speed, and scope magnifies potential societal benefits but also ethically and safety relevant risks. Hence, it becomes vital to seek a meaningful control of present-day AI systems (i.e. tools). For this purpose, one can aim at counterbalancing the increasing problem-solving ability of AI with boundary conditions core to human morality. However, a major problem is that morality exists in a context-sensitive steadily shifting explanatory sphere co-created by humans using natural language – which is inherently ambiguous at multiple levels and neither machine-understandable nor machine-readable. A related problem is what we call epistemic dizziness, a phenomenon linked to the inevitable circumstance that one could always be wrong. Yet, while universal doubt cannot be eliminated from morality, it need not be magnified if the potential/requirement for steady refinements is anticipated by design. Thereby, morality pertains to the set of norms and values enacted at the level of a society, other not nearer specified collectives of persons, or at the level of an individual. Norms are instrumental in attaining the fulfilment of values, the latter being an umbrella term for all that seems decisive for distinctions between right and wrong – a central object of study in ethics. In short, for a meaningful control of AI against the background of the changing contextsensitive and linguistically moulded nature of human morality, it is helpful to craft descriptive and thus sufficiently flexible AI-readable heuristic models of morality. In this way, the problem-solving ability of AI could be efficiently funnelled through these updatable models so as to ideally boost the benefits and mitigate the risks at the AI deployment stage with the conceivable side-effect of improving human moral conjectures. For this purpose, we introduced a novel transdisciplinary framework denoted augmented utilitarianism (AU) (Aliman and Kester, 2019b), which is formulated from a meta-ethical stance. AU attempts to support the human-centred task to harness human norms and values to explicitly and traceably steer AI before humans themselves get unwittingly and unintelligibly steered by the obscurity of AI’s deployment. Importantly, AU is descriptive, non-normative, and explanatory (Aliman, 2020), and is not to be confused with normative utilitarianism. (While normative ethics pertains to ‘what one ought to do’, descriptive ethics relates to empirical studies on human ethical decision-making.) This chapter offers the reader a compact overview of how AU coalesces elements from AI, moral psychology, cognitive and affective science, mathematics, systems engineering, cybernetics, and epistemology to craft a generic scaffold able to heuristically encode given moral frameworks in a machine-readable form. We thematise novel insights and also caveats linked to advanced AI risks yielding incentives for future work

Building value-based technology together

Maatschappelijke uitdagingen In toenemende mate vertrouwen we een deel van ethische besluitvorming aan smart-technology toe. Technologie heeft vaker dan ooit een ethische lading. Dit kan soms verregaande consequenties hebben voor consumenten, burgers of organisaties. Hoe zeker moet een algoritme zijn van haar zaak om een burger van fraude te beschuldigen? Hoeveel risico mag een chat-bot die financieel advies geeft een klant laten lopen? Wie mag bepalen hoe een algoritme op een sociaal media platform omgaat met desinformatie? Dergelijke vragen leiden tot belangrijke uitdagingen op het gebied van morele autoriteit, ethische besluitvorming, en morele strategievorming. Strategievorming in snel veranderend speelveld In zijn rede zal Bart pleiten om niet zozeer dé oplossing bij ethisch technologische vraagstukken te vinden, maar vooral een manier te zoeken om op een bestendige manier om te gaan met een snel veranderend speelveld. In veel gevallen lijken oplossingen in zowel de private als publieke sector voor techno-ethische vraagstukken korte-termijn gericht. En zijn het vaak maatregelen die snel en vooral zichtbaar een negatief effect van technologie proberen in te dammen. In zijn lectorale rede zal Bart ingaan op hoe belangrijk het erkennen en herkennen van ethische vraagstukken bij het programmeren van nieuwe technologie is. Maar ook hoe men de menselijke maat kan vangen én gebruiken als input in het ontwerp van nieuwe technologie. Er is volgens hem vooral een bestendige strategie nodig

Moral design and technology

When should a surveillance system that is used in preventive policing sacrifice the privacy of citizens to prevent criminality? What should be the impact of individual moral expectations when a social media platform designs an algorithm? To what degree can we use technology-driven deception in dementia care practices? And can we create a moral compass for a dashboard society? Over the last decade, the impact of technological innovation has been unprecedented. It has profoundly changed the way we participate and interact in society. It has also led to new moral challenges. Not only because of the technology itself, but also because this technology is used in the context of a globalised world with a more prominent role for the private sector. This can result in moral confusion: individuals who alternately assume the role of citizen and consumer feel unable to influence the design of technology that has a strong impact on their core values. Sustaining this moral confusion is in nobody's long-term interest. In this book, we propose to overcome this moral confusion by using a bottom-up design approach that incubates ethics when constructing new technologies. This book is composed of four parts. In the first part we focus on how to integrate moral decisions and morality in the design process of new technology. In the second part we assess how moral design relates to related discourse, including business ethics, law and policy. In the third part of this book various case studies are highlighted that focus on particular moral design issues at the crossroads of technological innovation in the public and private sector. In the last part we look ahead and discuss what the future might look like if we use moral design as a central approach in creating new technology. This book is relevant for IT and engineering professionals, business leaders and policymakers with innovation in their portfolios, and students of (applied) science who are interested in the moral design of technology. The chapters are written by experts and leading researchers in an attractive, accessible and practical writing style. Each chapter offers colourful examples and challenges the reader to critically think through moral decision-making and the design of innovation. Only table of contents, sample pages and author information can be seen

Lectorale rede Bart Wernaart - Moral Design Strategy: "Building value-based technology together"

Op 20 januari 2022 sprak mr. dr. Bart Wernaart zijn lectorale rede “Building value-based technology together" uit. Aansluitend werd Bart geïnstalleerd als lector Moral Design Strategy binnen Fontys Hogeschool Economie en Communicatie. Op deze website een verslag van alle onderdelen van die dag

Ethiek en Economie: een grensoverschrijdende inleiding

Dit internationaal georiënteerde boek is zowel een inleiding in de ethiek als een boek over bedrijfsethiek. Objectief, af en toe confronterend en theoretisch uitstekend onderbouwd

The enforceability of the human right to adequate food: a comparative study

While the right to adequate food is often discussed in the context of developing countries, especially in situations where access to adequate food is a problem on a larger scale, this book focusses on the right to food in two Western countries in which theoretically the circumstances allow this right to be enjoyed by each individual. Through a legal comparative study, the enforceability of the right to food is compared between the Netherlands and Belgium in light of the current UN Human Rights system. There seems to be a difference between what the countries do, what they say they do, and what they should do on the matter. As it appears, the coincidental constitutional circumstances mainly determine the enforceability of the right to food, rather than the content of the human right in itself. This book includes a thorough analysis of suitable comparative legal methodology and the embedment of the right to food in the UN human right system. Furthermore, for both countries, an in-depth analysis of the case law on the right to food (mostly concerning the status of foreigners), the constitutional context in which the Judiciary operates, and the relevant UN reports and subsequent procedures are outlined. Finally, recommendations are made to both countries and the relevant UN Committees

The plural wells of the right to food

The right to adequate food is by no means a tranquil possession with one single undisputed content. It has been addressed uncountable times with the utmost of urgency. Being one of the prerequisites for a humane life with at least a right to a minimum of existence, this right is embedded in the international human rights system that evolved in the period after the Second World War. The right to food is interrelated with complex matters that are not easily solved. Therefore, it appeared to be not easy to give meaning to the content of the right to food, and to help Member States of the United Nations to implement this right on a suitable way in their national legal systems. It is no surprise then, that a large web of international institutions, each functioning within their own competences and mandates, are involved in the process of further developing the right to food. This is done in discussions between stakeholders during summits and gathering. It is done by negotiating and finally adopting legislative documents that stimulate the development of this right another step forward. It is done by desk and field research to learn about the nature of this human right, about how this right is (or is not) realized in distressful times, and about what could be done to further clarify and develop this right. It is also done by (financial) contributions, all kinds of aid and education. Finally, it is done by measuring progress that has been made, by trying to make actors responsible for the realization of the right to food, and even accountable for when they fail to their meet their obligations. The right to food streams throughout the whole international human rights system, from an ever increasing number of wells. This chapter aims to provide an inventory of those wells of the right to food

Veiled justice, the courts'compassionate case law regarding hunger

In this book and elsewhere Dutch courts are portrayed as little short of barbaric for rejecting direct applicability of the human right to food. In this contribution I want to revisit case law asking the question if the rejection of direct applicability of the right to food implies that in the Netherlands hungry people are actually being let down by the courts

The right to water in the Netherlands, a story on a Ruling of one Court that challenged a questionalble tradition

After decades of rejection of direct applicability of Article 11 ICESCR, recognizing among other things the human right to food including water, a District Court in the Netherlands ruled in June 2008 that the provision can be invoked in a court of law. The decision was inspired by a presumed change of tides in politics, when the former Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs announced that the Netherlands joined the group of countries who recognize the right to water as a human right. In appeal, the decision did not hold, but no judgment was given on the question whether Article 11 ICESCR can indeed be invoked in the courts. There are however no indications that case aw is to be expected that supports the ruling of the District Court in favour of direct applicability of Article 11 ICESCR